Hezbollah- 'Lebanon is not Ukraine!'

CAIRO, Egypt -- With the rallying cry "Lebanon is not Ukraine," Hezbollah's leader this week provided an abrupt reminder that the path to Middle East stability and democracy may not be as simple -- or inevitable -- as the West has started to hope.

A group the United States calls terrorist made clear it plans for a large and powerful role in Lebanon's future -- and that anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment is still a powerful force for rallying people, every bit as much as the desire to stop Syria.

Yet it's also possible to misread the Beirut rally Tuesday that drew hundreds of thousands in a seeming show of support for Syria's presence: In part, Hezbollah is merely jockeying for political position within Lebanon, just like the former warlords in the opposition.

Hezbollah may not be tied to Syria so much as simply trying to prove its political power and guarantee a role in Lebanon's government if Syrian troops depart.

"In the long run, Hezbollah will run as a Lebanese nationalist party," said Jon Alterman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Why, then, the anti-American signs, denunciations of Israel and leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah's pointed refutation of the people-power Orange Revolution that swept Ukraine's opposition to power? "Lebanon is not Ukraine," the Hezbollah leader told the crowd.

"They needed to remind people, 'Hello, we're here,"' Alterman said. "It was a demonstration of force" -- and he and others noted, the protesters flew Lebanon's flag not the Hezbollah flag.

In fact, the links between Syria and Hezbollah are mostly a marriage of convenience, and Syria has restricted the number of seats -- now at nine -- that Hezbollah holds in Lebanon's parliament, said Judith Kipper, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

It also is wrong to say that Hezbollah opposes democracy in Lebanon, she said: "On the contrary, they are all for it, as they are the majority."

Under Lebanon's political system, the 1.2 million Shiite Muslims -- the country's largest single sect, from which Hezbollah draws its support -- form only a fraction of the half-Christian, half-Muslim parliament. So even if Hezbollah improves its standing, it will not be able to dominate the country under the current system. Muslims, -- Shiites, Sunnis and Druse -- make up a majority of the country, however.

Hezbollah retains the strongest armed militia in Lebanon, and its strength comes in large part from its willingness to attack Israel.

Before he died, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose assassination touched off the anti-Syrian rallies, had said such attacks only hurt Lebanon. So far, the opposition has muted anti-Israeli views, but also has tried to pull Hezbollah either into neutrality or into its fold altogether.

Such complexities -- and the sharply differing views on display in Beirut's streets in recent days -- have raised fears that Lebanon is headed not toward democracy, but chaos.

"This won't be Ukraine of 2004, but maybe Lebanon of 1975," said As'ad AbuKhalil, a Lebanese political science professor at California State University. At that time, the country was wracked by constitutional crises and political disputes that eventually dragged it into a volatile 1975-90 civil war.

The fact that Hezbollah is simultaneously a U.S.-denunciated terror group that funds suicide bombers in Israel and a provider of medical clinics and charity aid with wide appeal among Lebanese only highlights how messy the path toward democracy could be.

One top U.S. official, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield, acknowledged to Congress last week that Hezbollah might win more seats in parliament if Lebanon held free and fair elections. He also predicted the group's appeal would lessen if Lebanon had an effective government -- a clear sign that while the United States promotes democracy, it also has clear favorites as to who wins.

Such sentiments are not academic in a region that has seen startling moves toward democratic reforms in recent weeks in countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt, all of which contain popular groups with strongly anti-Israeli and anti-U.S. sentiments.

In short, the process toward democracy is "messy," Kipper said, and almost certainly will involve the success of political groups the United States and others view as deeply troubling.

Still, one way or another, "apparently this is the historical moment of change," she said.

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EDITOR'S NOTE -- Sally Buzbee is the Middle East bureau chief for The Associated Press, based in Cairo.